The evanescence of life
by Shanowa
Summary: A collection of brief stories taking place in the clone wars. Some chaps may contain Slash or mentions of Slash. OC characters, also appereances of known characters. Occasional appereance of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
1. Flesh and Blood

**Disclaimer: it all takes place in the Star-Wars universe of George Lucas and therefore I own nothing of this.**

**Containes mentiones of SLASH (M/M relationship)!**

* * *

******Flesh and Blood – The last moments of a clone called Cheeky**

"Forward, forward, DOWN!"

The sound of exploding fire sang in their ears ans an entire garrison vanished within the rising cloud of ash. Their screams echoing away unheard and dyed with the oxygen that abandoned their lungs to leave them charred and unresponsive to the occasional cracks of half ripped Comlinks.

The field was silent. Only death shouted its victory to the white clad men that littered the crimson-soaked ground. The brothers in arms, whoever, didn't answer to this cheerful platitudes and kept what was left of their dignity in silent defiance.

Crushed Comlinks broadcasted a broken voice, almost not understandable over the static hiss of the channels. "412 ple- resp-, repeat this is Genera- t- please respond, troopers."

The constantly repeating calls were interrupted by the distant growl of firing guns. Sudden blue fire ejecting from the black sky lit the dawn and reflected itself in the silvery metal of the brought down vessels of the republic and in the pale surface of the blank arms for part of a mere second, sending an eerie and sparkling shine dancing over the ashes like thousands of blue flames, symbolizing all the lives which had been lost within just moments. And just as they had arrived, they ghosted away, carrying with them the reminders of the last sparks of hope the men on the floor had felt and left their bodies lie in the dusty blackness of night.

There, in between the carpet of horror one of the bodies stirred, betraying the silence all the corpses around it lay in. A rough, clipped cough sliced the air, followed by violent retching and the sickening splashing sound of someone vomiting over the remnants of shuttered bonds.

Another cough and a rasped soaking in of air. Inhale and exhale both slow, unsteadily and harshly.

A bleeding hand, reaching out for one of the silvery, hope-bringing small gadgets that crackled and hissed unsteadily. A hoarse whisper and then, an insecure but steady answer, distorted by helmets and distance reached ears that struggled against the deafness the excruciatingly loud noise of the explosion had caused.

The answer the soldier had gained had obviously been satisfying, because the crumbled form of a broken body was forced to move by an iron will and fierce determination alone.

Trembling, yet strong arms pulled it forward, paving a way through dust, dirt and blood, pushing aside burned bodies and severed limps. The troopers disabled the half destroyed helmet and removed the crushed durasteel to get better access to the searing hot oxygen around him. Breathing was an excruciating process but its necessity made it impossible to escape the foul, dry air that filled his lungs and made him cough hard again. It was all he could do not to vomit again over the smell of burned flesh and blood that clung to him as well as to every single of his dead brothers in arms around him.

A shaky sob escaped his throat and he really had no energy left to fight the constant stream of tears that ran down his cheeks, washing away dirt and the crimson liquid of human life. It was hard, so hard to push himself up and on his knees.

Sudden agony forced him to recoil_._ The pain was excruciating, sent in shock waves through his body, glowing bright in front of his eyes, ringing in his ears, and devouring him from the inside.

He managed to get hold of one of the small syringes in his belt and injected the morphine with trembling fingers into his own neck. Then he just had to wait until the pain ebbed away and left only a dull throbbing behind.

The trooper, his brothers had called him "Cheeky" risked some time to identify the trooper beside him and removed his helmet. Careful, gentle, like a mother would help her hurt child out of a dirty shirt, he pulled the metal over the others head. All anxiousness of what he would find was suppressed into the dark corners of his mind as he lifted it and laid it down solemnly beside him. It was difficult to blink away the moisture in his eyes that blurred his sight and he didn't even know if he really wanted to manage it, but then suddenly he had.

He had and his vision was clear again.

The hazel orbs that resembled his own eyes as well as the eyes of everyone around them just as specifically, those orbs which stared emptily back at him belonged to CR-1334, or "Kid" as he was called, not disrespectfully, but a bit mockingly by his close brothers. The lone survivor recognized the faint scar that went across the other's left eyebrow and the indicated smirk that grazed the motionless corners of a bleeding mouth.

He had, most likely died with an sarcastic commentary on his split lips, one of all his countless attempts to lighten up the mood of the group. Cheeky shut his eyes close as he felt one wave after another of memories wash over him, dragging raw grief with it. Maybe it had not been the best of ideas to try to identify all the nameless corpses around him. It only fuelled the desperation that threatened to take over any time.

He was a clone, just one of billions of identical men formed and created to become the perfect soldier. To become the tamed version of a killing machine.

While Jango Fett himself had by no means been such a killer, he had passed on the perfect requirements to his heirs, and paired up with unique and the deadly fighting techniques they all had mastered during their training on Kamino it was created a weapon, so fierce and deadly that only genetic manipulation and a strict set of order hammered into its skulls had made it possible to wield it without striking down the wielding master himself.

Cheeky had never questioned this system so far, had never questioned his own loyalty which he was expected to provide to his Jedi Generals.

But now, at the end of all, he couldn't help but to ask about the sense behind all of this. Behind his existence, behind the bloodshed, behind the reflecting, expressionless eyes of his friend that mirrored his own, staring skywards, begging for redemption, for an end to the war.

This sudden desire to achieve some answer overwhelmed his senses and he ripped his head back, screaming the agony and loneliness of this forsaken galaxy towards giant clouds, crying out for release.

And then, then suddenly it was over. The memories and results of endless drills snapped back into place, mantras and training washed over raw nerves and he managed to brace himself, pushing every doubt, every question into the far back corner of his skull where it was crushed under the iron fist of right and wrong that ruled his own universe.

He was a clone trooper. Created and raised to serve the republic. He was raised to become a part, just one tiny single screw in the spinning wheel that was the GAR, the army that was designed to be perfect for one single purpose.

To protect the republic. It didn't matter what happened to him, didn't matter what happened to his brothers. They all where part of this powerful force and its survival alone mattered to them. He had to survive, had to survive to make sure the wheel kept spinning, never stopping, never slowing down, never surrendering until even its last white-armoured warrior had ceased to be.

Because the republic stood on the brick of devastation and one weakness in its defending wall, on weakness of its servants would cut the ropes that held it floating over the dark abyss of destruction and thousands of innocent civilians would pay for their failure. He was one of them and he would not be the cause for innocent blood to stream, just because he had been to slow or to less convinced, to less determined.

It was said that the single strike of a butterfly's wing was enough the unleash a hurricane. The hurricane wound never exist without this butterfly, though and therefore that butterfly had to keep fighting in order to unleash a hurricane over the enemy's forces.

He pushed himself onto strained legs. He would give up, not when he still had a job to do, a destiny to fulfil. He would not give in to his fears and desperation. Never.

It was almost painful to rip his gaze of the face of his former friend and all his companions around him, but it was not a matter open to discussion and so he did and made his way through the ashes, determined to reach the front lines where his brothers were fighting off cold, emotionless metal that threatened to crush their lines.

And even if the individual, the soldier, the human was ephemeral, the GAR was not. The republic was not. Couldn't be. Just, could not be.

It would not. As long as there was only one to stand up for it and take the beating it would cost. Paying the prise that was to pay.

Today this was Cheeky.

Tomorrow it would be another one when Cheeky would lay motionless and cold beside his brothers in a line that has vanished in dust, ash and blood. But not today. Today he lived and he lived to honour what the other had died for.

It didn't matter that his legs gave out when he had passed the last one of the sprawled out bodies on his way.

It didn't matter that he let himself fall forward on and reached out to cradle the cold face of the last in the line. It didn't matter that his closed damp gloves around the still body and pressed the still fuming reminders of the face firmly to his chest. It didn't matter that his broken body rocked forth and back with chest-wrenching sobs. It didn't matter that he just couldn't find the strength to stand up again after he had kissed the other goodbye on dry, split lips.

Clone didn't love, didn't bind himself to others, didn't form attachments and certainly not with one of their genetic counterparts. Clone loved solely their duty and their duty was to the republic and nothing else, and so it didn't matter that he sunk to the floor beside the motionless form, clutching it with an iron grip, not able to let go, not able to move on. It didn't matter the slightest that he had lost every will, every determination to survive. It didn't matter, either that he had long ago given in to the horror of war. The republic demanded him living and so it didn't matter that he just gave in to his injuries. He was a clone, he had a duty to fulfil even if it condemned him to emotional and physical slavery.

He was a soldier of the GAR who was not able to love, only to fight and therefore it didn't matter he would never stand up again. He would defend to republic to his last breath and therefore he would now b doing just that. What he wanted was not important, what he could was not important, what he felt was not important. All the counted was how much metal would give in in his iron grip, how many lives fled his rage. All the lives that vanished beneath his white sparkling boots.

But what the Cloners on Kamino had forgotten when they pressed them into their forms, what they had forgotten when they fused cell with cell to create a new life after their imagination, when they peeled him out of their plastic placentas was that he was still human.

And human did feel, human did grief and love and laugh. And human did surrender to death.

Human were evanescent and therefore it did matter that he breathed his last breath beside his dead lover and joined eternity not for the republic, but solely for him.

It did matter, maybe not for the Republic, or for the GAR, or for the war, but for him.

For him it was all that mattered.

Dying fingers found dead fingers and entangled themselves before they embraced death together. For him it was all that mattered. For him it was hope and redemption. And escape.

They all died almost unnoticed, without a glorified speech or a blazing pyre. They all just died united. They were never alone.

That was their last solace.

And so Cheeky rejoined them, lying beside the one he loved more than everyone else. No one was immortal, it was both, a curse and mercy to them. No one was invulnerable, not the civilians, not their heroes, not the leaders, not the Jedi, not the soldiers and also not Cheeky.

And he left life with his arms around a motionless body, on a nameless battlefield with the clone wars raging on around them. Just one of thousands of missing troopers.

The war went on without him.

* * *

_So, I hope you liked it. If, then, please, take the time to press this button on the bottom and leave a review? *puppy dog eyes* If, not, then I'd still be very thankful for constructive criticism:D_

_I'd say I'm not entirely content with this one again, but then again, I'm never with my fics, so..._

_I plan this to be a collection of similar stories that take place in the clone wars._

_I wasn't what to think of romantic relationships in between troopers, given their genetical erm... lack of variety and the tendency to call the other, their "brother", but I decided to just try it out with Cheeky. After all it might be a bit lonely for them sometimes, don't you think?_  
_Anyway, this is my first Slash-stories, if you want so._

_Thanks for taking the time to read:)_


	2. Irony

**Irony - The Failure and almost Insignificant End of Krama Chorik**

Leap – run – leap – run – climb – run – run – leap – leap – leap – run – climb _– hide!_

Krarma Chorik held her breath as two guards – clone troopers marched past the narrow crevice in the wall where she was currently hiding from the soldier's alert gazes. _Clandestine_, _clandestine_, had the boss told. _Don't let them even so much as catch a glimpse you, or else you will fail,_ he had said. And was probably right with it.

It was probably the most perilous and hazardous job she had ever agreed to do.

But she desperately needed the money and this assignment promised a reward greater than she had ever had the possibility of dreaming of one. It made sense, though. Her target would be hard to kill, almost impossible, even, were it not for her cautious planning and absolute expertise in killing hard-to-kill-targets. Not to speak of the way back outside with a furious Jedi/Sith chasing after her and a not so small bunch of clones and ARCs.

Not that it mattered, though. The boss was determined to erm... get rid of this particular human.

Granted, would she not survive this mission, another would replace her with better or worse chances on success. It didn't matter to the guy in black robes. Her life didn't matter. Not to him, not to anyone, really. She was an outcast. A criminal. Scum. Even those who depended on her did so unknowingly and involuntarily.

A bounty hunter without a family which cared for her, without a home or a husband, or children.

A stand-alone that it bothered her, though. She was a lone wolf and was glad with working on her own.

Besides, nobody would be so stupid as to try and form an alliance with her. She was not one to share. Three had offered to help her so far – nobody had lived long enough as to even _smell _the reward. And now, with a reputation of a highly dangerous lonely strike-and-disappear hunter, she had gotten hold of this huge assignment she was now about to accomplish.

Her blood boiled in excitement when she thought of the moment when the unstoppable, seemingly immortal warrior would finally fall, when her bolt graced his skin, the second the annoying General would get crushed by her iron fist, his head bursting like the shell of a rotten muja-fruit, bearing the sign of her victory.

Yes, this was going to be her triumph, today. She'd make sure of that.

When rethinking it, she was all but astonished to catch herself being completely content with the turns and paths her life seemed to take.

A cold shudder down her arms and she snapped into alertness.

There, a security camera.

How, by all the stars in the cruel galaxy could she have overseen that? That small detail that could easily cost her success and demand her life? She was usually over-aware of details and meticulous in planning - she could not, would not afford to make such a minor yet significant mistake as to run into the sight-range of a camera and being spotted and even recorded!

She pressed her slender body into the shadows and let her gaze wander in an experimental attempt to find a possibility to disable the bloody thing without destroying it because that would be more than counterproductive.

It would be just as stupid as to stroll right in front of the camera and wave to the security staff, screaming "Hey, yeah, guys, here I am! I am a bounty hunter, I am about to kill your beloved General! Just ignore me, please, and let me pass so that I can finish my job in peace!"

Not very intelligent, indeed.

She was determined to kill her target. And she would, _could _not fail.

Although she had to admit that, when she was contacted by Tyranus, she had been rather surprised.

The holovid he'd sent her had contained the face and data of a rather handsome and very, _very_ well-known, relatively young Jedi-Master. Surprised, but not unpleasantly so.

She manoeuvred her slender body into one of the ventilation uncomfortably narrow ventilation shafts embedded into the ceiling and absent-mindedly asked herself when the security personal of militaristic and other operations would finally come to the realization that air-shafts were not only easy to infiltrate but also ridiculously well distributed, unguarded entrances throughout their buildings and therefore a serious security hazard.

There – there he was! Half standing, half leaning against a wall in the entrance to the tactical centre of the ship, looking rather nauseated by the carnage that was to projected, tinged an insecure, transitory blue by the surface of a strategic holo-table.

A cleft which seemed like a lie, separated him from the three high-rank clone troopers gathered around the table, discussing animately, gesturing despite their militaristic stoicism ingrained into them from artificial birth on.

He looked tired. The features of his boyish face pulled in a constant frown. He appeared also older than he was. A fact that might have been deliberately emphasized by the reddish short-cropped beard that grazed his jaw and cheeks. And also, albeit probably less deliberately by the gentle lines of exhaustion that were carved in his forehead, the hard set of his jaw and chapped, try lips against too pale, almost ashy looking yet still youthfully smooth skin.

He sighed and his hands moved almost unconsciously towards his face to stroke his beard in contemplation.

She retreated into the last room, checked through the vent that she was, in fact, alone and that no cameras were visible around her and then dropped, a bit too loudly on the floor beneath. She inwardly cursed when on of her boots slipped and she had to hop rather inelegantly to stay on her feet.

Having regained her footing, she then crept into the balcony which was so practically situated over the centre room, spotted the general and brought her gun into position, while stubbornly blocking out her upwelling nervousness over the easiness of access.

Nothing was ever that easy.

And that the general was obviously too distracted or maybe too tired to notice anything out of place was almost too good to be true. She had a hard time believing a Jedi was ever this vulnerable.

She blocked out the thought and tried to get ready for the sudden and fast retreat she would have to perform immediately after the shot.

She aimed at his left temple, reconsidered and then lowered the gun to be pointed at his chest. He was still, after all, a Jedi. And the broader the place where she could hit, the bigger the chance of hitting him at all and perhaps even damaging something life-threatening.

Her finger curled, the blaster gun's gut purred almost inaudible in their lethal objection of concentrating light to a burning, hard laser and it was barrelled out into the air.

He sensed it and moved forward, but too late.

His deliberate fall was interrupted mid-air and he stumbled, awkwardly, onto the floor as his lightsaber instinctively, but out of time, smacked into his palm and awoke to hissing life.

She did not wait to see if the hit was lethal or not. She was gone before he had reached the floor and long before anyone had gathered his senses enough to discover her exact place. Behind her retreating back she heard more than she saw the crack of impacting blaster ammunition into the walls and closing door to her right.

She ran for her life, the adrenaline pumping with malicious vigour through her veins, her lungs and heart burning under the strain.

On a fast zig-zag course she trailed through the corridors, leaping over gaps in the construction too wide to manage as a human non-force-user and tried to gain speed even when her muscles screamed at her in protest.

Light-bolt after light-bolt impacted beside her and between her feet and hurt her eyes when they came too close.

Her fur bristled with the electric current of every near hit but did not deteriorate her from her chosen path. She ignored the easiest escape route – the hangar – conscious of the fact that is was most likely already sealed and avoided the traps laid out for her by drawing on her predatory senses which allowed her to hear the clone's boots and gasping for air long before they managed to reach her.

Half-way through the facility she had to switch to a four-legged sprint and so gained more speed than her pained leg muscles alone could provide her with after the lengthy hunt.

She let her fear fuel her reserves, but refused to allow the up-welling panic to paralyse her and instead tried to concentrate on her long-ingrained athletic abilities and the superior speed she inherited from her ancestors.

And then, finally, a shot to her left, which luckily destroyed the control panel of a window shield and she threw herself through the shattering glass, joining a hundred glittering shards on their long way down to the ground, three hundred miles below.

Unlike the shards, though, she did not plan on being smashed to dust upon her impact and activated her jetback, igniting the bluish tinged fires that propelled her, using greenish, foul smelling Dathomir Helgas as a fuel, upwards through the sharp, reflecting rain into the darkening, always misty and frosty sky.

* * *

She cried in tired, hardly quenched fury when she learned, the next day, in a Corellian bar on Arc III that General Kenobi was, in fact, alive.

He looked still tired, maybe even more so than he had before, but otherwise unscathed. The news displayed on the flickering, dirty screen did not even carry any mentioning of an ambush that left him injured and bleeding.

Instead, they concentrated on the latest separatist infiltration on Marron X and had him defending the GAR's rather unconventional approach to the situation for which, most certainly, Anakin Skywalker was to blame with another reckless attempt to claim the title as a hero.

Everyone new, nobody mentioned it. Business as usual.

Krarma shed emerald tears over her failure.

But she could not help the sudden inkling that she would have cried a lot harder, probably even deep blue like the sky of Tansity, had she actually managed to exterminate the gentle, cultivated young Jedi-Master whose silver-tongued affirmations effortlessly soothed a mob of agitated journalists gesticulating in front of him. Even though she had to do without the reward of her life, she would at least sleep soundly that night.

And now, retrospective, her anger at her target seemed childish, almost tantrum-like. It had been, like all this adrenaline fuelled bursts of hate directed torwards a goal, supposed to help her loosing her fear - and her natural inhibitions torwards ending a life. It served her well, usually. But it did not protect her from the guilt - and the ever-lasting, afwul, soul tearing remorse afterwards.

There would be other jobs she could accept to make a living out of. She was alive and free and that was all that counted. On second thought, accepting a job as dangerous as this had been a mistake, anyway. It had been too risky.

If she had been killed, or caught, who would then hunt for her little clan? She was the only one who could, who was raised without the bunch of strict morals that were, without question, the basic to their society but, unfortunately also the road to starvation and poverty since they lost their home.

Not that they would have accepted the money, had they known, who she was but not knowing and starving left them with little choice, anyway. She was alone, but not without family.

She finished her drink, got up on wobbly feet, threw the mechanical 'keeper a few coins and disappeared into the night.

At the end of the day, the force seemed to always protect its champions, against the odds of coincidence and arbitrariness, overruling luck, or the lack of on its way. She smiled.

She was obviously not one of them, though.

* * *

She had lived through years of daring operations and suicidal missions and survived her attack on one of the most powerful Jedis in history unscathed only to die, three weeks later, at the hands of a starving fifteen year old Rodian, who shot her, thinking she was one of the republican officials pursuing him for stealing an Alderaanian purple salmon on the market.

Collateral damage or sheer bad luck. It did not matter.

One of many victims of the clone wars.

She though she heard the force's quiet giggle and its gentle mirth when it accepted her dismembered spirit and led it towards death and felt her ancestors sigh in her ears.

_Life is ironic, is it not? A funny little game, and then it ends. Just like that. Like a candle's flame snuffed out by sadness and madness and devastation.  
_


End file.
